[G]ender studies courses are extremely friendly and supportive environments. In contrast to the stuffiness and conformity of many academic settings, gender studies students and scholars are tolerant, friendly, and enlightened in their attitudes to race, sexual orientation and transsexuality. Gender studies is invariably more sociable than other academic settings, and all kinds of people are welcome, so long as you are willing to engage with people and ideas in a considered and respectful manner.

Conserve Liberty: If men behaved as gentlemen and women behaved as ladies we wouldn't need Gender Studies.

Do we really need Gender Studies now? As far as I can tell, it's a way for people to practice rhetoric. But if you're going to practice rhetoric, why limit yourself to gender? All your arguments will become boring and predictable.

"Gender Studies" are a waste of neurons. In fact I strongly distrust any major or degree that involves two words, most especially so when the second word is "Studies".

When works like Ensler's Vagina Monologues -- described by Camille Paglia, no less, as "ravingly anti-male" (and she did not mean that as a compliment) -- are considered "great" there is a certain lack of intellectual rigor prevailing.

Imagine, if you will, praising a work that was ravingly anti-black, or anti-woman ... which emphasized the importance of having a "penis mind", or a racist mind.

Or you can examine the Queer Theory subset of Gender Studies: all gender is a socially-derived CHOICE. Yet they define sexual orientation as an innate characteristic, hard-wired from birth. Mental midgets.

When I brought up -- in a pub discussion with a professor of Gender Studies -- the obvious internal contradiction presented by Queer Theory she attempted to dismiss my intellect by insisting that it was "both /and" and that "either /or" thinking was the sign of a weak mind.

So I asked her "So it has to be either 'both/and' or nothing, right?" She concurred heartily, never sensing the trap into which she had just stepped.

The big question, then, is why any thinking person with halfway cogent faculties of reason and logic would ever even bother with such a blatant waste of time, effort, and money.

Conserve Liberty: My point is if people were simply kind and considerate - words that in the modern context don't fully convey their meaning - the conditions that cause "want" for Gender Studies would not exist.

People are different and people want to understand how those differences effect their actions, so they can better interact with them.

I could see rationalizing Gender Studies on the basis of kindness and consideration!

And the "if people were simply kind and considerate" argument could be used to rule out prisons, the capitalistic system, religion... so many things. Makes me pretty certain no one has ever been kind and considerate.

"[G]ender studies courses are extremely friendly and supportive environments. In contrast to the stuffiness and conformity of many academic settings, gender studies students and scholars are tolerant, friendly, and enlightened in their attitudes to race, sexual orientation and transsexuality."

Let's get a few things straight. The dominant ideas, approaches and insights of the vast majority of academic disciplines are produced by, for and about men. This does not necessarily make them bad ideas, but it does mean that there are entrenched gender biases in most fields. In my own discipline – politics – the key undergraduate texts are overwhelmingly by and about men. And yet this is seen by most as unproblematic, as natural or inevitable.

And so we should replace them with female biases? So if I understand him correctly, the historian who writes about WWII and all of those MALE generals and soldiers is biased.

You all realize it was women's studies graduates that were responsible for taking Shakespeare out of many curriculums because his writing was sexist. They can have my copy of Hamlet when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

Roux said... What kind of job can you get with a degree in gender studies?

If you're willing to stick with it, you might qualify for an academic position.

Many government jobs just call for a degree and don't care about the subject.

Then there's the gender greivance community doing consulting at lawsuits, anti-discrimination seminars, etc.

But in the real world of private industry, I believe any of the "Angry Studies" degrees is actually a strike against a job applicant. After years of hearing about how they've been discriminated against, what kind of attitude are they likely to bring into the workplace? Why would any rational employer want to bring that into their organization?

I took a class on gender theory and international relations during a master's course in Australia. Some interesting stuff, but a lot of illogical nonsense as well. The funniest lecture, however, was when I raised the issue of potential sociobiological differences between the sexes. Basically, these subfields rely on a (now discredited) model of complete Skinnerian behaviorism to make any sense at all.

"You all realize it was women's studies graduates that were responsible for taking Shakespeare out of many curriculums because his writing was sexist. They can have my copy of Hamlet when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands."

Hamlet? Pfui. How about Richard III? They can have my Dick when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands!

Here in the United States, a good first step against this would be to for sensibly governed states to cut all public funds to any Studies department at a public university.

Private schools, and idiotically run states will continue to fund this nonsense, and go bankrupt. Hopefully we'll have a federal government in place that won't bail out these institutions dead set on pumping out another generation of grievance mongerers rather than critical thinkers.

@Jason teh Commentator said: And the "if people were simply kind and considerate" argument could be used to rule out prisons, the capitalistic system, religion... so many things. Makes me pretty certain no one has ever been kind and considerate.

I realize I long for a social order that never existed and never will exist.

You conflate failures of individual behavior with failures of institutions.

One of the biggest problems in this country is the neutering of the father image. The MSM has gleefully participated in the process, perhaps believing they are leveling the field. As a result the number of families without a male father figure has plummeted. Young men, instead of living up to a firm and confirming model instead sink into alcoholism and video games. One author who has struck at this problem is Mr. Ed Louis Cole (now deceased) who wrote books such as "Maximized Manhood" and "Strong Men in Tough Times". I have no problem with affirming females, but does it have to be at the cost of destroying men?

One of the biggest problems in this country is the neutering of the father image. The MSM has gleefully participated in the process, perhaps believing they are leveling the field. As a result the number of families without a male father figure has plummeted. Young men, instead of living up to a firm and confirming model instead sink into alcoholism and video games. One author who has struck at this problem is Mr. Ed Louis Cole (now deceased) who wrote books such as "Maximized Manhood" and "Strong Men in Tough Times". I have no problem with affirming females, but does it have to be at the cost of destroying men?

In contrast to the stuffiness and conformity of many academic settings, gender studies students and scholars are tolerant, friendly, and enlightened in their attitudes to race, sexual orientation and transsexuality.

One of the problems with Gender Studies Departments in universities is that members have a say in the conduct of university affairs and sometimes get into positions of power from which they enforce their beliefs. A university person who disdains gender studies and/or their core beliefs has very little chance of survival in universities. Can anyone name a university which has several strong faculty voices which consistently oppose Gender Studies? No such camp of opposing voices within academia exists -- nor would such a voice stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving in academia. I stopped donating to my alumni association once I learned that a Gender Studies faculty member became Dean of something or other.